GWW - W.W. Grainger Continues To Ride High As Company-Specific Strategic Initiatives Produce Results

• Grainger has stood out from its industrial distribution peers as its high-touch/embedded services and growing e-commerce operations see good growth and share gains.
• Inflation gives more pricing power to distributors, but I believe Grainger is gaining share today by leveraging its product sourcing and balance sheet to outperform smaller players on in-stock performance.
• Margins remain a hot-button issue, particularly with the growth in MonotaRO and Zoro diluting margins, but Zoro is an important offset to risks from Amazon over the longer term.
• Grainger doesn't work for me on valuation, but it does at least have positive growth differentiation at this point in the cycle.

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